The findings of gen re analys i s , h owever, bring toget h er the insights of these earl i er
approaches to text analysis, but also a greater sophistication in the examination of the
wri ters' purpo s e . The Moves and Steps that Swales (1990) su ggests for the arti cl e
i n trodu cti on marries the tex tual aw a reness of the regi s ter analysts with a mu ch
broader vi ew of h ow rh etorical con s i dera ti ons govern gra m m a tical ch oi ce . Th e
i n terest in disco u rse com mu n i ty and how the ex pect a ti ons and conven ti ons of
different discourse communities mould the texts that they use has led to this broader
vi ew and placed ESP re s e a rch in a po s i ti on wh ere it can make a meaningf u l
con tri buti on to discussion of h ow ideas are dissem i n a ted and facts cre a ted in
communities.
The early work by Swales foc u s ed on the re s e a rch arti cl e , and in particular the
i n trodu cti on secti on of the re s e a rch arti cle gen re (Sw a l e s , 1 9 9 0 )1. His Cre a ting a
Research Space model (the CARS model) is very well known, but for the sake of clarity
and comprehensiveness I shall outline it here. The model captures the ways in which
academic writers justify and highlight their own contribution to the ongoing research
profile of the field by first establishing a topic for the research and summarising the
key features of the previous research, then establishing a gap or possible extension of
that work that wi ll form the basis of the wri ters' cl a i m s . The model proposes three
main Moves for the introduction and a number of Steps used to express each move:
Move 1: Establishing a Territory
Step 1: Claiming Centrality
and/or
Step 2: Making Topic Generalisations
and/or
Step 3: Reviewing Items of Previous Research
Move 2: Establishing a Niche
Step 1A: Counter-claiming
or
Step 1B: Indicating a Gap
or
Step 1C: Question Raising
or
Step 1D: Continuing a Tradition
Move 3: Occupying the Niche
Step 1A: Outlining Purposes
or
Step 1B: Announcing Present Research
Step 2: Announcing Principal Findings
Step 3: Indicating Research Article Structure
This model (originally presented by Swales in a slightly different form in 1981) has
had a tremendous influence on genre analysis in ESP and on the teaching of academic
wri ti n g, both to intern a ti onal or L1 stu den t s , or to profe s s i onal wri ters wishing to
publish in international journals. A move based approach has also been used for the
a n a lysis of the re s e a rch arti cl e , e.g the abstract (Sa l a ger- Meyer, 1 9 9 0 ) , the met h od s
section (Wood, 1982), the results section (Brett, 1994, Williams, 1999) the discussion
section (Belanger, 1982, Dudley-Evans, 1994) and also for the analysis of dissertations
(Hopkins and Dudley-Evans, 1988).
Tony Dudley-Evans, The University of Birmingham
Enduring..........
Discussion and Conclusion
The initial work on Move and Step analysis (Sw a l e s , 1981 and 1990; Bh a ti a , 1 9 9 3 )
suggested that the models proposed were generalised models that applied to academic
a rti cles wri t ten in all ac ademic fiel d s . Cl e a rly it was ack n owl ed ged that there were
s ome differen ces bet ween disciplines, but it was argued that the models propo s ed ,
su ch as the CARS model for the arti cle introdu cti on , a re pro to types and actu a l
examples will vary in the degree to which they conform with this prototype.
What is becoming cl e a r, h owever, is that disciplinary va ri a ti on is mu ch more
significant than allowed for in the original work on genre analysis.We need to devise a
theory that goes beyond the ideas of prototypicality to acknowledge that variation in
the disco u rse stru ctu ring of gen res ref l ecting different ep i s tem o l ogical and soc i a l practices in disciplines is a key factor in genre theory. The danger is that the theory will
become immensely complicated with a proliferation of genres for each discipline. It
could be, however, that the simplicity of Martin's model (Martin, 1989) which places
register between genre and language in the hierarchy, as in the diagram below, will
capture variation without over-complicating the theory:
(PLEASE NOTE THAT WE NEED TO ADD ARROWS FROM GENRE TO REGISTER TO LANGUAGE)
Genre – Register – Language
This sys tem all ows us to account for differen ces in discipline and bet ween form a l
academic papers and those in popular journals through the use of Field and Tenor, two
of the three components of register in the Hallidayan system (Halliday 1985).
I am thus arguing for a theory of ESP based on text, but one that starts from the point
of view that texts in different disciplines will have different patterns of organisation
rather than variations on one 'common-core' pattern. Common-core patterns are, I
am suggesting, a convenient starting point for pedagogical purposes, but may not have
much basis in actual genre analysis.
The teaching of academic writing will clearly need to reflect this variation. It is clearly
possible to use the generalised CARS model as the starting point for the teaching of
ac ademic wri ti n g, p a rti c u l a rly if one is te aching heterogen eous groups of s tu den t s
f rom different disciplines, but with hom ogen eous groups it may be mu ch more
ef f i c i ent to focus on the specific fe a tu res of the actual gen res that stu dents actu a lly
have to read or write. This is especially the case where students are in an EFL situation
studying their subject course in their first language. Such students will not have the
high proficiency levels in English that most students have in a first or second language
s i tu a ti on and wi ll need , in my op i n i on , a mu ch more stra i gh tforw a rdly linguisti c
a pproach based on the actual texts they use. Th ey do not have the linguisti c
sophistication to deal with issues about the readership and the discourse community
in any depth. They need to see how the Moves and Steps work in the genres they use
and how they are expressed in English.
Tony Dudley-Evans, The University of Birmingham
Enduring..........